The narrator and main character Mildred Lathbury speaks with her neighbours Rocky and Helena Napier about a convert called Everard Bone (Helena's work colleague and the object of her adulterous infatuation):
" 'Of course it's more of an intellectual thing with him,' said Helena. 'He knows all the answers.'
'We certainly want people like that,' I said. 'The Church needs intelligent people.'
'I should think so,' said Helena scornfully. 'All those old women swooning over a good-looking curate won't get it anywhere.'
'But our curate isn't good-looking,' I said indignantly, visualising Father Greatorex's short stocky figure in its untidy clothes. 'He isn't even young.'
'And anyway, why should the Church want to get anywhere?' said Rocky. 'I think it's much more comforting to think of it staying just where it is.'
'Wherever that may be,' added Helena.
I made a faint murmur of protest, but it was rather faint, for between the two of them I hardly knew where I was, though Rocky's attitude seemed the more sympathetic. 'I'm afraid we aren't all very intelligent about our religion,' I said, slightly on the defensive, 'we probably don't know many of the answers and can't argue cleverly. And yet I suppose there's room for the stupid as well,' I added, for I was thinking of the lines in Bishop Heber's hymn,
Richer by far is the heart's adoration,
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.
Though obviously He must be very pleased to have somebody as clever as Everard Bone."
This is a clever little passage in itself. It's also, in retrospect, a neat encapsulation of two unproductive views of the Church: one, that it needs to 'get' somewhere (through progressive change) and two, that it should be privately cosy and and irrelevant to public life.
No comments:
Post a Comment